[NoR] - [24] - No Shame in Flight

A legion of Phyrexians poured into the room, armor clanking as they lined the walls, preventing any escape. The ring of partisans shimmered in the light of the portal. Razel backed against the metal spears restraining the gate, ‘walking repeatedly and landing again and again inside the portal chamber.
Rokh made his approach leisurely, the oily smile widening as he closed the distance to his former ward.

“Don’t engage. I have plans for him.”

Razel gave up trying to flee, severely disliking having nowhere to go. A creature capable of going anywhere does not like feeling trapped. He looked casually about the room, taking in the layout of the portal design. The jury-rigged Planar Well hummed dully.

“There’s nowhere for you to go, Roz. You know it as well as I do.”

Razel glared at his former mentor, his decisions made. Initiating his gamble, he spat a venomous retort.

“I’m not sure I ever want to know the things you know.”

Rokh looked hurt, clearly faking it.

“Oh, but if only you did. This is everything we were trying to do.”

Rokh raised his arms, motioning to the porcelain legionnaires which surrounded the two of them. He continued.

“Phyrexia. I know you’re aware of it. Did you know it had returned?”

“I’d heard rumors. Do you really intend to lecture me right now, Rokh? Don’t you have anything better to do?”

Rokh scoffed, shaking his head.

“Roz, with you right here, I honestly don’t. The glorious work will continue without me while I take care of your situation. Do you have anything better to do?”

Razel nodded.

“There’s a tournament on Persea. I was invited as a guest of honor.”

Rokh faked a look of disapproval, stopping just within arm’s reach. Razel’s cheek burned in pain before he realized that he had been struck, the spurs on the back of Rokh’s hand scraping divots from his face and compacting the sheen of oil into his wound. Wincing, he tried again through gritted teeth.

“What about the Markets in Mercadia? I hear there’s a festival soon, lots of sales-“

Rokh planted the arch of his foot atop Razel’s throat, pressing him against the blades. His reply was cut short as the foot pressed harder.

“There’s the spontaneous musica-“

The word devolved into a gasp and a gurgle.

“Should I assume Itako is dead?”

Razel pulled Rokh’s foot back from his neck slightly, granting himself barely enough room to speak.

“Yes. Didn’t even mention you.”

“I should hope he didn’t. He was under express orders not to.”

Rokh leaned in closer.

“Where’s your fight, Razel? I remember you being better than this.”

The rime mage feigned confusion, croaking back a reply.

“Wait…you want me to fight back?”

Razel threw the ankle from his neck, tossing Rokh aside and wiping oil from the slow to heal wounds on his cheek. As his wits returned, he decided to try taking advantage of their previous association to draw the encounter out.

“You hit like a little girl, by the way.”

Rokh got to his feet, grinning and stepping back to take a defensive stance.

“Classic you, hiding behind witticism because you’re too afraid to admit that you’re just a lost child trying to find a place to play.”

“Ouch. Straight to the heart of the matter, huh? What do your friends think of your psychoanalysis?”

The Phyrexians remained motionless.

“They don’t care. They do as they’re told. Something you used to excel at.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

Razel motioned at his foe, shadows streaking from his feet. The tainted Vulshok expressed genuine disappointment.

“At least you know that you do. I mean, seriously? This?”

Rokh reached out to the oncoming umbra and clenched his fist, a brilliant flash of light dispelling the darkness.

“I thought you liked that spell.”

“And I thought you’d have learned a new one. Would you like to see one of mine?”

An arc of energy spouted from his fist, disappearing and re-appearing just in front of Razel. The blade buried itself in his chest, flickering and fading away after a moment. Dropping to his knees, he fell forward, catching himself just before he would have met the floor. Rokh strolled over to him aimlessly, swiftly kicking him in the side.

“Hurts, doesn’t it? Found that one recently. Come on, show me what you’ve learned in the lives you’ve strung along since you left us!”

The next kick was stronger, launching the ice mage several feet. He slid a bit more along the smooth stone floor, bumping up against one of the large power conduits. Razel forced himself upright, bracing against his elbows and facing Rokh.

“I’ve learned a few things. Things like this.”

He shot the bolt of mana right into the center of the domed ceiling, the void contained by the solid rock above. The Phyrexians looked up to it, some visibly alarmed. Rokh observed with curiosity as his troops were drawn from their feet and collected into a maelstrom of flesh and steel. As the warriors condensed into a singular space, the deluge of oil and meat rained down on Rokh, whose internal flame brightened in fury and humiliation. He turned back to his prey, flinging muck as he spun. His face drooped as he recognized the broken cabling Razel held in his hand, the sparking ends calming as the portal itself started to shrink. The cable dropped as Razel disappeared, fleeing the Foundry.

Thoroughly understanding how borrowed his time was, Razel skipped the first few realms he found immediately, hopping blindly from plane to plane before seizing one at random. Salt flats stretched out of sight in each direction, an endless sea of crystalline sands unbroken save for Razel’s sudden appearance. He hurriedly drew out six concentric circles, nesting each the same distance from the previous. Six more lines were drawn crossing the rings, granting Razel a basic blueprint for his escape. Standing at the first crossing of the lines, he planeswalked to the space above it, warping from point to point midair and building a cage of scars. The general shape of a sphere began to emerge, while arcs of static power leaked from the construct as each hole destabilized the center point further.

“Sixty-six…Sixty-Seven…”

The air in the middle began to ripple, distorting the pure white beyond into a vision of rolling dunes.

“Seventy…Seventy-one…Seventy-two.”

He dropped from the top of his cage, knowing his next ‘walk would be the last he could make before his design collapsed. A thunderclap drew his eyes behind him, spotting Rokh striding through the salt. His steps left oily stains in each print he made. His approach stopped as he took in the throbbing wound in reality past his prey. Razel took the initiative and spoke first.

“I wouldn’t activate a Lock, or do much of anything volatile. At the slightest provocation this is likely to collapse into a rift.”

The Phyrexian’s eyes narrowed.

“So it was intentional. We knew you killed Karl, since he told us as much himself. A rift, though? I thought better of you. I can understand a moral disagreement. I can understand where you were coming from, even if I don’t agree. But to be so desperate that you become the very liability you spent so much time working to prevent?”

“You’re not talking me into coming back. Obviously the rifts can be healed, so don’t start with that whole ‘Liability’ Speech.”

“Do you even know how we fix them?”

Razel opened his mouth to respond but thought better of it. Instead, he just shrugged. Rokh took a cautionary step towards him.

“We learned a lot about them thanks to the Dominia Anomaly. Including, as you surmised, how to repair them. It’s not very practical.”

It was Razel’s turn to narrow his eyes. The Phyrexian continued.

“The only way we have found to seal them completely is to have a planeswalker mend it with their spark. As in sacrificing it, entirely.”

A reflexive cringe of horror shook Razel as he came to terms with the information, resolving to follow through with his plan regardless.

“So you’re telling me that I can cut your numbers just by making a bunch of these?”

Rokh scowled.

“You’re sounding more and more like a danger to the multiverse. Don’t you want to know why that isn’t practical?”

“Other than the obvious?”

“When one ‘walker sacrifices their spark, they become a regular example of their species, their constituents solidifying and rebuilding a physical body. Their power leaves them. If the rift is big enough, it saps the sparks of any ‘walkers nearby, draining their powers until they are simply mortals that can ‘walk.”

“I knew the Anomaly had done that, but was it really because we tried to fix it?”

“We didn’t, we simply learned how. The situation could have been handled with significantly more finesse, but the abundance of wild walkers on Dominia makes that difficult.”

Rokh chuckled, spitting viscous black droplets into the dust.

“Look at me, explaining as if we were still partners.” He wiped oily residue from his face. “We could be.”

Razel shook his head firmly.

“Nope. I refuse. Not going back, can’t make me, etcetera etcetera.”

Rokh held up a hand, small swirls of mana encircling it. The proto-rift pulsed, causing Rokh to lower his fingers, dispelling the energy.

“You know I could kill you and take you back to be rebuilt as a composite golem, right? You don’t really have a choice.”

Razel took comfort in having the upper hand at the moment.

“I always have a choice. Regardless of what your ‘Superiors’ may tell you.”

Another chuckle.

“Oh Roz…I am a Superior now.”

Razel feigned shock, mostly due to apathy with little genuine surprise.

“Really? How long ago did they bump you up?”

“Long enough that I had time to find myself. Trek home.”

“Hence the Phyrexians. Were you surprised to see your former home consumed by war?”

“You know as well as I do that our memories of where we come from are limited to what we recorded before the Academy Optimizations take them from us.”

The rime mage cocked his head, now genuinely intrigued.

“I do now.”

Rokh lit up.

“So you never…Amazing. Even now, after all this time, there are things you aren’t aware of.”

“So explain.”

“I will tell you when you have taken my eyes.”

The challenge fell flat, neither party wanting to trigger the rift, leaving the two to stare at each other as they remained in a state of forced inaction. Deciding he had had enough, Razel rolled his eyes and turned his back on the Phyrexian.

“I’ll be back for them.”

Rokh flushed with panic, reaching out to the rime mage.

“WAIT, DON-“

Rokh cut himself short as his target slipped between spaces, briefly re-appearing in the center of the scar lattice before they collapsed on themselves, the implosion continuing out the other side of the rift and fracturing the space around it. Aeons away, Razel felt the path ‘behind’ him close, lingering within the aether. The burning sensation radiating from his cheek reminded him of the infection. Reshaping himself into an amorphous cloud of essence, the foreign bodies were thrust directly into the madness between spaces. The unprotected material evaporated on contact, leaving the ‘walker cleansed of Oil. Razel bobbed in the aether for an indeterminate period of time, debating how he should take care of the situation. The possibilities, no matter the path, were unpleasant. A confrontation with Rokh was inevitable, and his conscience would not allow him to stand idly by as the Phyrexians staged another interplanar invasion.

The circumstances were dire. Lesser mages would simply flee, leaving the multiverse to fend off Phyrexia on its own. Weaker ‘walkers would flee, not wanting to be involved with the Academy. Razel was uniquely positioned between an unfortunate alliance of the two, something he was rather sure even greater mages would hesitate before engaging. The planeswalker, for the first time in a long time, felt entirely in over his head. And yet, he was the only one who could do something about it.

Resigning himself to recover and request help, Razel fled to his retreat.